Every life has been affected by cancer.

Solid tumors make up the majority of cases, representing 90% of adult cancer diagnoses and 40% of those in children.

Ray Lee, M.D., Ph.D., a former physician-researcher at VCU Massey Cancer Center, wants to help as many of those patients as he can.

But while most doctors work with patients one-on-one, his own vision is to care for hundreds of thousands of patients during his career.

And the way he is doing that: Drug development.

During his time at VCU, Lee developed the pharmacological foundations of TEC-001, a potential first-in-class therapeutic agent designed to induce tumor death (necrosis) and enhance immune checkpoint inhibitors in solid cancers with liver metastasis. TEC-001 is the centerpiece of innovation cancer therapeutics from New Jersey-based Teclison, a clinical-stage biotechnology company led by Lee, who serves as founder and CEO.

Under Lee’s leadership, Teclison recently announced the completion of a $5.9 million capital raise. The financing will help advance clinical studies of TEC-001, which began as part of Lee’s work as a researcher at VCU Massey Cancer Center. VCU Innovation Gateway helped Lee file the patent for TEC-001.

“Even though I was an oncologist and a scientist, and was given time and opportunity to research this therapy while caring for patients, I still had a deficiency in my knowledge: I didn’t know how to develop a drug very well,” he said, referring to the intensive process of running clinical trials and gaining FDA approvals.  Realizing he needed an education, Lee took a leap of faith: In 2008, he left the comforts of VCU and Massey and dove head-first into drug development with big pharma’s Merck and Roche. But he always had plans to come back to “my baby” — TEC-001 — in the future. 

“It was a hard decision for me back in those days to quit my university job that had supported me, to shut down my lab, and move full-time into the industry,” Lee recalls. “But it was a motivating factor, too, because I knew one day in the future I would come back and develop my own drug.”

After accumulating experience in the pharmaceutical world — and bringing drugs to market through FDA approvals — Lee formed Teclison in 2014 to focus on his cancer-fighting technology. The company received its Investigational New Drug (IND) approval that year, opening it up to clinical trials in humans.

Today, TEC-001 is being evaluated in combination with FDA-approved immune checkpoint inhibitors in Phase 2 clinical trials for the treatment of liver, colorectal, and lung cancer.

“When Dr. Lee first filed the patent for TEC-001 while at VCU, we knew that this treatment had the power to affect millions of lives,” said Ivelina Metcheva, Executive Director of  VCU Innovation Gateway. “Our mission focuses on supporting VCU inventions that will benefit the public, and Dr. Lee’s research will certainly do that.”

And so what started as a VCU invention has garnered worldwide attention, with the potential to bring the research of Richmond to cancer treatment centers around the globe. 

“The lifetime passion of a physician is to treat and cure as many patients as you can, and it is a gratifying experience when you succeed, especially with a cancer patient,” Lee says. “But if I can do that with a drug that becomes successful, we can help hundreds of thousands of people. And that is our company’s goal.”

And the way he is doing that: Drug development.

During his time at VCU, Lee developed the pharmacological foundations of TEC-001, a potential first-in-class therapeutic agent designed to induce tumor death (necrosis) and enhance immune checkpoint inhibitors in solid cancers with liver metastasis. TEC-001 is the centerpiece of innovation cancer therapeutics from New Jersey-based Teclison, a clinical-stage biotechnology company led by Lee, who serves as founder and CEO.

Under Lee’s leadership, Teclison recently announced the completion of a $5.9 million capital raise. The financing will help advance clinical studies of TEC-001, which began as part of Lee’s work as a researcher at VCU Massey Cancer Center. VCU Innovation Gateway helped Lee file the patent for TEC-001.

“Even though I was an oncologist and a scientist, and was given time and opportunity to research this therapy while caring for patients, I still had a deficiency in my knowledge: I didn’t know how to develop a drug very well,” he said, referring to the intensive process of running clinical trials and gaining FDA approvals.  Realizing he needed an education, Lee took a leap of faith: In 2008, he left the comforts of VCU and Massey and dove head-first into drug development with big pharma’s Merck and Roche. But he always had plans to come back to “my baby” — TEC-001 — in the future. 

“It was a hard decision for me back in those days to quit my university job that had supported me, to shut down my lab, and move full-time into the industry,” Lee recalls. “But it was a motivating factor, too, because I knew one day in the future I would come back and develop my own drug.”

After accumulating experience in the pharmaceutical world — and bringing drugs to market through FDA approvals — Lee formed Teclison in 2014 to focus on his cancer-fighting technology. The company received its Investigational New Drug (IND) approval that year, opening it up to clinical trials in humans.

Today, TEC-001 is being evaluated in combination with FDA-approved immune checkpoint inhibitors in Phase 2 clinical trials for the treatment of liver, colorectal, and lung cancer.

“When Dr. Lee first filed the patent for TEC-001 while at VCU, we knew that this treatment had the power to affect millions of lives,” said Ivelina Metcheva, Executive Director of  VCU Innovation Gateway. “Our mission focuses on supporting VCU inventions that will benefit the public, and Dr. Lee’s research will certainly do that.”

And so what started as a VCU invention has garnered worldwide attention, with the potential to bring the research of Richmond to cancer treatment centers around the globe. 

“The lifetime passion of a physician is to treat and cure as many patients as you can, and it is a gratifying experience when you succeed, especially with a cancer patient,” Lee says. “But if I can do that with a drug that becomes successful, we can help hundreds of thousands of people. And that is our company’s goal.”